


Wild Wind and Storm

by Talik_Sanis



Series: Kagami Appreciation Week 2020 [7]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste Is Sunshine, Angst, Board Games, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Identity Reveal, Kagami Appreciation Week, Kagami Tsurugi Needs A Hug, Let the Sunshine In, Storms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27633848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talik_Sanis/pseuds/Talik_Sanis
Summary: Kagami is alone, caught up in a storm, but when is she not?It's a good thing that, eventually, the sunshine breaks through every stormcloud.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Kagami Tsurugi, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Kagami Tsurugi
Series: Kagami Appreciation Week 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2000614
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32





	Wild Wind and Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kagami Appreciation Week November 19: Storm - Wind. Water. Electricity. Is it destruction? A coup de foudre? And excuse for a cozy night in? A brilliant display of lightning reflexes?

Kagami disliked storms.

The thought came to mind again as she stood staring out into the blackened Parisian night, the city of lights a dark and infinite sea. Emergency lights flared up periodically, and passing traffic shone, but the city was all but dead.

There had been an akuma attack featuring a villain capable of manipulating the flow of electrons in spectacular fashion, and for whatever reason, Ladybug had not been present. The akuma's assault had crippled the city power grid and there was no magic to set it right. Ladybug's absence was likely the reason Chat Noir had recruited Ryuuko and Viperion to assist him, but the snake had been the only one to follow the cat's surprisingly competent lead.

She had rushed ahead again, thinking that her command over lightning would be enough to overwhelm the akuma.

She had been wrong.

Wind and rain clawed at her shivering bedroom windows. It was a rattle was felt deep in her bones. Her mother was still present, even though she was away on business.

Were she able to allow herself the weakness, the thunderclaps that echoed in her ears would have caused her to wince as did the chaotic rumble of crowds when their noise pressed in on her too fast and too dissonant. There was no way to focus on just one thing; no way to push through the distractions that whelmed like the Seine swollen with the heavy rain.

There was thus a great irony in Longg's transformation phrase that hadn't struck Kagami when she first “brought the storm” only to find herself caught up in the whirlwind of battle, the strange tempest that was Ladybug and Chat Noir.

They blotted her out, even as they tried to accept her.

When she transformed that first time, Longg's power had thrummed in her veins and stuffed up her nose with the scent of fireworks and _kyara_ incense burned during a _tsuya_ _,_ a passing of the night.

She wasn't the storm; as ever, she was caught up in it - couldn't control it.

Today, even her _body_ hadn't been her own.

The interaction with Chat and Viperion was not so different from her first experience with Paris' principle heroes, actually. The two men were fluid, one spastic and jovial sunshine and the other smooth and cool slippery night yet they somehow balanced each other in a way she couldn't.

That was why she would never truly be successful as a swordswoman, surely. She could not make openings for herself because understanding her attitudes and those of her opponents was too much of a challenge. Upper, middle, lower, right, and left were all a blur. What did people intend to use? What did she favour? How was she imbalanced, as she knew she was?

The raindrops trailed and pooled along her window while she took a sip of frigid tea.

Not for the first time, she wished that Longg was here. The little dragon had suggested through a vague and deferential series of omissions and partial revelations that sought to guide her to the path of wisdom, that she was ... familiar with the Ouroboros. There was a long-running dispute with Sass regarding the nature of the creature: dragon or snake-

A furious knocking, a pounding almost washed away by the sheets of rain that beat down on her roof and walls, pulled her away from the window.

Cautious in the dark, she eased her way down the stairway, guided by her electric lantern to avoid falls, but there was a sliver of concern. Only someone foolish or desperate would be knocking at this time of night in the midst of a near city-wide blackout.

After setting aside the lantern, clicking it to the brightest setting so that wispy shadows tucked themselves away into the corners of the hall, she flung open the door.

Adrien stood there, looking like a happily drowned cat, smiling as he waited politely for her to allow him inside. Rainwater poured and sluiced off of his coat, plastered his hair, as his waterlogged body trembled and gleamed in the glare from her table-side lantern.

Befuddled, she allowed him in, helping him out of the storm, the crash of rain softening to a patter when the door shut.

“H-hey, Kagami,” he chattered, slopping the sodden backpack in his hands onto the floor, water puddling under it and almost streaming off his body. His nose scrunched up as he tried to wring out part of his crumpled shirt, slicked to his torso.

“Adrien, what are you doing here? Are you alright?”

“Oh, yeah! I'm great.” Such enthusiasm for a drowned boy. “It's just that the power is out at the mansion and I knew that you were home alone, so I thought that maybe you would like some company.”

“You could have called to make certain. What would you have done had I not been available to allow you entrance?”

He just laughed in that way of his while ... stimming, was it, according to her research, by rubbing his neck. Pay attention even to the little things that seemed unimportant. Her mother taught her that, echoing Musashi. Easier said than done, of course.

“I guess I didn't think of that, and I was in the neighborhood.”

Hadn't he just said that he was in the mansion? What a confusing boy. He seemed so brilliant and simple at once, but there was always a challenge that skirted around the edges of his smile and happy eyes, as if he was testing her everywhere, forcing her to grow and begging her to break down his guard so that she could learn how to finally land a touch.

Thunder rolled beyond the walls, rattling both of them, but he held firm.

It should have been easy when she could see his weaknesses so clearly, but force could never overcome his defenses; they just oozed or festered out of the way and she found herself struck in the middle of her own attack. Adrien was, in his own way, a master of _tai no sen._

Kagami hated _tai no sen_.

“I figured that you'd have chess or something, so I brought a deck of cards, and _Azul_ , and _Carcassonne_. I made sure to seal them up really tight, so they shouldn't be wet and we can play _Words With Friends_ if you don't really like board games,” he rambled, a gleeful child.

Still soaked, he fumbled the plastic-wrapped board games out of his backpack and handed them over to her, grin broad and lighting up his cheeks that twisted and shimmered in the light of the lantern set on the entryway table.

The games were also sealed in mangled shrinkwrap, offering another layer of protection. Faded price stickers were affixed to each.

She had to lock her knees. She should have turned him down, for it was folly to play games. _Do nothing useless._

“Do you think that I could use your bathroom for a minute?” he asked as if it was an imposition as he shivered in her vestibule. His smiled chattered but was real.

“Of course, Adrien,” she offered as she gathered up the games and brought them to the living room before lighting a few candles. “We should have enough ... lukewarm water.”

For a moment, the entire room was brilliant with lighting.

The slick plastic turned in her hands as she examined the explosions of colour and landscapes depicted on the boxes while Adrien took off to the bathroom, another waterproof bag in hand, presumably containing a change of clothes.

She tried not to think of him peeling off the wet fabric, slipping into her shower, and warming up. Perhaps the lingering heat might flush his pale skin a rosy pink.

The boxes were placed on the dinning room table as she cleared away some of the place-mats and decorative objects before retrieving a knife from the kitchen to wait so that she and Adrien could open the boxes together.

_Azul invites you, a tile laying artist, to embellish the walls of the Royal Palace of Evora._

_8+, 2-4, 30-45._

Bizarre. Artistic. The opposite of straightforward.

_A simple, clever tile laying game that brings new challenges with every turn._

_7+. 2-5, 30-35._

[Especially good for two players.]

She cleared her throat and blinked.

She disliked storms.

While he showered, using up some of their stored lukewarm water quickly, she fiddled with the knife.

Eventually, after several minutes, the rain slowing but the city remaining completely dark, he emerged in a loose Jagged Stone tee-shirt and plaid sleep pants, hair a mess of tangled blond as he towered it dry. She blinked. Ah.

The small details were nonsensical. His sock-clad feet shuffled on the floor while he grinned.

“You do know that this was unnecessary, right, Adrien?” she said as she took a seat in the chair next to hers.

The way his shoulders slumped was a posture of defeat, but she felt as if she was the one who had suffered a loss.

Or, she had blundered with her footwork and been defeated by her own unexpected clumsiness.

“But appreciated,” she assured, putting a hand to his shoulder. “I always enjoy your company, and the chance to defeat you in anything.”

She gave him the choice.

“Which game do we wish to play first?”

“Either is fine,” he chirped, rubbing his hands.

“Adrien?”

The smile faltered.

“I would like you to choose.”

“I- I guess that I'd like to try... _Azul_?” The way that he fiddled with the sliver ring on his fourth finger reminded her of a prisoner who had not yet lost hope, feeble hands pawing at the lock on his cage.

“So, how is this _Azul_ played? What are the rules?”

He shifted the box on the table and tapped at the display of colourful tiles, tinted by orange candlelight. “You have to pick up a group of tiles and then fit them into your mosaic to score points.”

“Yes, but how does one play?” she asked, longing to know the rules. How the game was played. “How are points scored? How do the rounds work?”

He chuckled. It was his... ashamed chuckle. When not defending or oozing out of the way, he always adapted the low attitude. “I- I don't know, really.”

“You've never played before?”

“No.”

She retrieved her cellphone from her pocket and was about to call up a youtube tutorial using her data plan - even in the storm, she had reception - when his hand lanced out to grip her wrist.  
  
The candlelight cut his features with shadows, while his hair gleamed orange-yellow like a candle flame itself, mussed up as it was after fencing.

Familiar.

“Kagami, I-”

“What?”

“I was hoping that we could read the instructions,” he said in a slow hush as if that wasn't alright.

She thumbed her brow and tried to read his motion. What strike was that? “Would it not be more efficient to review a tutorial?”

“I guess,” he said, dejected. Even she could tell that, though not why.

“You seem disappointed.”

“It's nothing.”

She tucked her cell phone into her pocket. “You suffer enough disappointments.”

“I was just hoping that... it was something that we could learn together.” He looked to the floor, the wrinkles around his eyes and the shifting of his Adam's apple made him look so much like the boy he was with his father. “It's stupid.”

She took the knife from the table, flipping the box over onto its back so that she could slice into the plastic wrap along the edge between the cover and the box proper.

“It will be more difficult to learn without a tutor or a video tutorial,” she observed as she set the knife aside and began to tug open the box.

“I know.” The response was slow, considered. He took the lid from her hands, but they held it together for a moment. “I'm okay with that, if you are.”

She was.

They brought the candles closer to the centre of the table so that the light was concentrated before them and spread out the instruction manual. Their chairs were pressed up together as they flipped through the rules, Adrien racing ahead to try to piece things together, eager to get to each new section and skipping steps because he intuited what was to come; Kagami tempering him and holding him back for a thorough and precise read-through of the rules.

In that nearly empty house, they played board-games by candlelight for hours and she pretended to have no idea how he was going to get back to the Agreste estate.

In the doorway, she pressed her lips to his cheek as he paused before leaving and, for the first time, her kiss made him smile in a way that wasn't in any way tinged with sadness.

As she took the board-games up to her room to hide them, she thought that, perhaps, storms weren't so bad.

They made you appreciate the sunshine all the more.


End file.
